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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



out of place here to state that the more strenuous his 

 efforts in that direction, the more likely the association 

 is to make a careful investigation, which is all the 

 friends of the cause desire. 



THE IRRIGATION AGE is about to try an 

 An experiment along the line of supplemental 



Experimental irrigation and has secured a tract of land 

 Farm. in central Michigan, on which the work 



of clearing has already begun. This land 

 is located on a beautiful lake and the intention now 

 is to clear about ten or fifteen acres early this spring and 

 establish a supplemental irrigation plant, that is to say, 

 put in pumping machinery in the shape of a large wind 

 mill and gasoline engines and raise the water to a res- 

 ervoir on a side hill, with which to supply crops during 

 the "dry spell" which inevitably strikes all the central 

 states some time during the growing season of the year. 

 It is not our ' intention to go into this on a very large 

 scale during the first year. We will probably try the 

 experiment on five acres planted to garden truck and 

 at the same time set out five or ten acres to young fruit 

 trees and a careful study will be made of the effect of 

 water furnished growing crops and trees under this 

 system. It is our intention to follow the line of work 

 carried out by Dr. Gapen at the Northern Hospital for 

 the Insane at Kankakee, and with that end in view 

 will get in touch with this gentleman and secure such 

 assistance in the way of suggestions as he may be able 

 to offer us. 



It may perhaps be necessary to lay out two five-acre 

 plots, the crops of which will receive identically the same 

 treatment and cultivation, the only difference being that 

 water will be supplied to one of the tracts during the 

 "dry spell" while the other will be left to take care of 

 itself so far as moisture is concerned. It is our im- 

 pression that this experiment will be instructive and 

 interesting to all our readers and we intend to not only 

 tell what success may develop out of the proposition, 

 but to state as well what mistakes are made and explain 

 so far as we can the cause of failures as they may de- 

 velop. It can be readily understood that an experiment 

 of this kind would be of little value to the general pub- 

 lic unless they are taught to avoid mistakes as well as 

 to improve advantageous conditions. 



Photographs of this tract in different stages of de- 

 velopment will appear in the columns of THE IRRIGA- 

 TION AGE. The land lies in what is known as the Cadil- 

 lac tract, one and one-half miles southeast of Cadillac, 

 Mich., is on a lake as above stated and the Ann Arbor 

 railway cuts diagonally across the tract. This plan 

 was suggested by a citizen of Michigan, who has been 

 making experiments on a small garden patch during 

 the past several years with good results. The idea of 

 this experiment is to illustrate to our readers the prac- 

 ticability of establishing a water supply station on all 



the farms in the humid section, so as to be able to dis- 

 tribute water to plants during the growing season when 

 lack of the natural supply would make the artificial 

 application necessary to insure normal or good crops. 

 If any of our readers have experimented along this 

 line and will furnish us with information which will 

 be of value to us in our experiment, we will be very 

 glad to receive same.- 



We are presenting in this issue a corn- 

 Curtis on prehensive report on irrigation develop- 

 Irrigation. ment under the Reclamation Act prepared 



by Mr. William E. Curtis, the well known 

 correspondent of the Record-Herald, Chicago, which 

 will prove interesting matter for all of our readers. Mr. 

 Curtis secured his data from the fountain head at Wash- 

 ington and all of his information is presumably, there- 

 fore, authentic. There are many facts, to be sure, con- 

 nected with the report prepared from data secured 

 from the chief of the Reclamation Service or Geological 

 Survey which are passed over lightly and details con- 

 nected with the selection of sites for Government proj- 

 ects are necessarily eliminated. It is safe to say, how- 

 ever, that Mr. Curtis and other correspondents of na- 

 tional reputation will later on secure information which 

 will permit them to give facts concerning matters of 

 grave interest to all interested in the subject of national 

 irrigation. It will be noted that Mr. Curtis speaks 

 of the Tonto or Salt River Basin project in Arizona 

 and states that it will be one of the greatest dams in 

 the world. He says that the entire cost of this reser- 

 voir will be $3,200,000 and it will reclaim an area of 

 160,000 acres of desert land around the capital of Ari- 

 zona. THE IRRIGATION AGE can not agree with Mr. 

 Curtis in this connection, as it is a well known fact that 

 the lands to be irrigated under the Tonto reservoir are 

 lands held in private ownership and the majority of the 

 land has at some time or other been under cultivation, 

 if it is not in fact being profitably cultivated at the 

 present time; and Mr. Curtis no doubt failed to learn 

 that the Tonto proposition and the expenditure of this 

 $3,200,000 are practically a loan to a lot of private 

 land owners in this vicinity; he perhaps did not learn 

 further that there was strong talk just before election 

 last year of using such influence as could be brought to 

 bear by one of the congressional delegates, who was de- 

 feated, to so arrange matters that none of this money 

 would be paid back to the Government under the pro- 

 visions of the law. Fortunately the gentleman who in- 

 timated that this end might be attained, was defeated. 

 Otherwise there might have been a possibility of his 

 mixing matters very badly and so shaping affairs that 

 the Government would have expended over $3,000,000 

 purely and solely for the benefit of a group of land own- 

 ers who had no claim whatever upon it. 



In this connection Mr. Curtis also states that when 



